Monday, August 02, 2010

"D-19 Reporter" Ginger Ramsey ("unmasked" here as Senator Lenett's disgruntled ex-employee) is continuing her smear attacks on Senator Mike Lenett (D-19). Her latest mudslinging was to blast an email on July 26 and post on a website she has devoted to her smear attacks against Senator Lenett a copy of what I thought was a private email that was sent to me by Joel Mazelis, President of the AGWG (Allanwood, Gayfields, Willson Hills and Gaywood Estates) civic association and the next-door neighbor and supporter of Senator Lenett's challenger, Delegate Roger Manno.When I asked Ms. Ramsey where she got the email, she replied that Mr. Mazelis gave permission for her to send it out in a mass email. Mr. Mazelis denies this, but admits to redistributing his email to me to others without my knowledge.

Mr. Mazelis sent an email to me on July 7 where he made certain negative claims against Senator Lenett that, after doing some checking with various sources, I found are based on false information. I had replied to Mr. Mazelis on the same date pointing out the inaccuracies, but apparently that did not cause him to correct the falsehoods, nor stop the redistribution of his email.

Nor did it stop Ms. Ramsey from publishing it to the world. Whether it was true or false obviously does not matter to Ms. Ramsey. All that matters is that it is negative against Senator Lenett. It is very sad that a disgruntled former state employee who has a personal vendetta against a good, hard-working public official has resorted to engaging in such repulsive tactics, dividing neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, Democrat against Democrat. In my opinion, she is behaving shamefully and has brought political discourse to a new low. Given her slanderous motive and tactics, she has zero credibility and nothing coming from her should go anywhere but in the trash. I truly regret the divisiveness undertaken by Ms. Ramsey. Negative politics has never worked for me, nor for many of my friends and neighbors who vote in District 19. Most of us understand that Ms. Ramsey is on a rampage, and just ignore her. You should too.

This whole matter is so darn unnecessary. Let's talk about issues. Let's talk about records. Let's not engage in distributing false, negative attacks in this election year against anyone. Such conduct is totally uncalled for, unhelpful, divisive, and just plain rotten. I commend Senator Lenett who has had this mud hurled at him, yet continues to remain above it.

Rocky Lopes

Rocky Lopes has been involved in various civic activities and non-profit organization leadership roles in Montgomery County for decades. He is a life-long resident of the county. Disclosure: Rocky serves as the webmaster for Mike Lenett's campaign website.